


Counting Carols

by allyswan



Category: Naruto
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hatake Kakashi-centric, Romance, accidental angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 16:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13080621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allyswan/pseuds/allyswan
Summary: If Kakashi had any sense, he’d leave Sakura well alone. With the mantle and duties of Hokage now rested squarely upon Naruto’s shoulders and Sasuke always on the go to this place or that, he’d found himself becoming closer to Sakura than ever. Becoming quite attached, really. It just wouldn’t do. He had no business noticing her eyes or her smile, and what would she ever want to do with the likes of him anyway? She could almost hear her tinkling voice in his ear, giggling, Dirty old sensei. Could almost feel the playful swat of her hand against his shoulder.It just wouldn’t do.





	Counting Carols

The glowing lights of Konoha grew closer and closer with each step, until they were close enough that Kakashi could tell they were not just street lamps and porch lights. They were string lights, twinkling and blinking and glowing merrily, white and multicolored and some of them that awful, eye-searing blue-purple that made you want to look away except you were so mesmerized that you couldn’t.

He stopped, kicking up tiny flurries of snow at his feet, and blinked. Had he really been gone so long?

He shrugged his pack higher up onto his shoulder and continued on. As he approached the village gates, he noticed bemusedly that someone had thought to hang two massive holiday wreaths on either side.

Izumo and Kotetsu were not anticipating Kakashi’s arrival. In fact, they were quite asleep. A small puddle of drool was pooled around Kotetsu’s cheek where his head rested on the desk and Izumo had evidently drifted off on a half-eaten candy cane as there was one stuck in his hair when he turned his head over and gave a loud snore. Between them on the table sat two long-forgotten paper cups of tea.

Kakashi plonked his mission scroll down on the table, startling the chunin into consciousness. They both woke with a snort and looked at each other in bewilderment for a moment. Then Kotetsu seemed to finally notice him standing there, and he broke out into a sleepy grin.

“A bit behind schedule, I see,” he said. He opened the scroll and gave it a perfunctory glance before stamping it and returning it to Kakashi’s waiting hand.

“I ran into a little trouble on the way back,” Kakashi said, his voice coming out low and gravelly.

Izumo gave him a once over. Under his gaze, Kakashi became yet more aware of the bone-deep ache that permeated his entire body, the searing pain of a broken rib, and the trickle of blood down the side of his face from a small but still oozing head wound.

“Do you need an escort to the hospital?” Izumo offered. Kotetsu gave him a sidelong glance that seemed to say, _As if_.

“That’s all right,” Kakashi said as he stuffed the scroll away in his pack. “You should see the other guy.”

They both laughed at that, and Kakashi dismissed himself, walking away with a lazy wave. He was but a few feet through the village gates when he heard Kotetsu call toward him, “Oh, Kakashi-san! Merry Christmas!”

_Huh_ , Kakashi thought eloquently as he made his way through Konoha’s snowy streets. So it really had been that long. He cracked a small smile underneath his mask and glumly sang in his head, _I’ll be home for Christmas, you can plan on me_.

Yes, he’d been gone for some time, but somehow he doubted he’d be returning to much fanfare. Aside from the sparkling Christmas lights, the outskirts of the village were nearly pitch black. Even as he came to the heart of the village, not a creature was stirring. Most everyone had to be asleep at this hour, or at the very least indoors to escape the cold.

He came to a pause at an intersection, only half-aware that he was even stopping. The road to his left was brightly lit with festive decorations. String lights floated above the street, hung between houses in a collective, community effort to bring perhaps an excessive level of seasonal cheer. With the homes lit up so brilliantly, he could clearly see a familiar house a few blocks down. Someone had built a snowman in the front yard and dressed him in one of the old standard issue chunin vests. Kakashi had a pretty good idea who had done it.

He wondered if Sakura was awake now. He even got halfway to taking a step down her street before he thought better of it and continued on his way home. What he wouldn’t give for her soothing, healing touch right about now, but she probably wouldn’t take kindly to a rude awakening from an unannounced visitor. He’d call on her in the morning.

Or, if he had any sense, he’d leave her well alone. With the mantle and duties of Hokage now rested squarely upon Naruto’s shoulders and Sasuke always on the go to this place or that, he’d found himself becoming closer to Sakura than ever. Becoming quite attached, really. It just wouldn’t do. He had no business noticing her eyes or her smile, and what would she ever want to do with the likes of him anyway? She could almost hear her tinkling voice in his ear, giggling, _Dirty old sensei_. Could almost feel the playful swat of her hand against his shoulder.

It just wouldn’t do.

So he plodded on home, snow crunching beneath his feet, and tried to stop longing for the sound of her voice.

* * *

He woke to the sound of knocking upon his front door. He glanced blearily at the clock on his nightstand, blinking ’10:18’ at him in glowing green numbers. The night had afforded him a good, long sleep, but he still felt bone-tired. He sat up as the knocking continued, ran a hand through his hair, and hissed as the wound on his forehead stung. His hand came away with a faint streak of blood. Last night he’d managed to shower and at least clean the wound before knocking out completely, but he’d had neither the energy nor the sense to bandage it. There was a smudge of blood left behind on his white pillowcase, too. Swell.

The knocking came again, louder and more insistent this time, and he grumbled, “Coming, coming.” He at least had the presence of mind to throw on a pair of pants before opening the door to reveal Sakura, perky and well-rested and bundled up in a puffy red coat with a fur-trimmed hood. He became acutely aware of the flush on her nose and cheeks, tinged red by the cold outside, before he reminded himself that he had no business being aware of such things.

“Sakura,” he said simply.

“I heard you came back last night,” she said. Then, with a smug glance, “You’re looking remarkably unmasked this morning.”

His hand came up to rub the lower half of his face, rough and scratchy after a few days gone by without a shave. He shrugged. His face had not been a mystery to Sakura for some time now; he’d given into her drunken cajoling on her twenty-first birthday to reveal his face to her as a gift. Since he hadn’t _actually_ gotten her a gift, he’d felt almost obligated to comply. That coupled with the way she’d been staring at him with her wide, sparkling eyes and her face gone adorably pink from the alcohol had rendered him totally unable to let her down.

She’d touched his face and mumbled some drunken nonsense about him being cute. Then she’d burst into hiccupping laughter at his beauty mark and stumbled out of the room before he’d had the chance to do something monumentally stupid, like try to kiss her.

She wasn’t looking at his mole now, or even at the rarely exposed lower half of his face. Instead, with her brows knitted together and her lips quirked downward, her eyes were fixed squarely on the wound on his head.

Before he had the chance to come up with some half-assed excuse for why he’d skipped out on seeking treatment for a head wound, she stepped forward into his space. Her right hand came up, already glowing green, to heal the cut while her other hand gently cupped the back of his head, fingers buried in his hair, to keep him still.

“I don’t know how many times I’ll have to tell you before you listen,” she said, “but you need to take care of yourself.”

“Don’t I have you to do that for me?”

She huffed out a laugh, and he was drawn to the smell of peppermint and cocoa on her breath. It took every ounce of self-restraint he had within him not to lean into it, to duck his head toward her and see what other scents her could find on her skin. Instead, he stayed obediently still as she worked on him. He could feel the ragged edges of the wound knitting together, the ache in his head soothed by her cooling chakra.

“And here I thought you came to wish me a merry Christmas,” he said.

The glow of her healing chakra faded, and she smiled at him as she pulled her hands away. “Actually, that is why I’m here,” she said.

She had a pack slung over her shoulder that she shrugged off now. From the bag, she withdrew a clean gray rag and tossed it his way while she continued to dig around. He scrubbed the dried blood from his forehead with the rag and watched her rustle around in her bag until she pulled out a square-shaped package, wrapped in metallic, festive paper.

They traded; she stuffed the rag away into her pack as he held the gift in his hands. Truly, neither of them were the gift-giving type, at least not towards each other. Treating each other to lunch was usually the extent of their gift exchanges, apart from the time Kakashi had lowered his mask before her eager eyes. He felt odd as she turned her gaze on him expectantly, and he wondered what had changed, and when, and why he hadn’t noticed.

Perhaps she’d just wanted to warmly welcome him back from his mission. Perhaps she knew that no one else took much notice when he was gone or when he returned.

“Go on,” she prodded. Though she crossed her arms and quirked her eyebrow, trying to put on airs of impatience, there was a playful tilt to her smile.

He obliged, tearing the wrapping paper open to reveal a hinged double picture frame crafted from a supple, dark wood. “I had it handmade,” she explained. He stole a glance at her and noticed the flush on her cheeks from the cold had not yet faded. Then he opened the frame; it was decorated with small shuriken delicately hand-carved into its edges. On one side, she’d already stuck in a picture of Team Seven in their early days, young and eager without even the slightest inkling of the chaos the coming years would bring. The other side of the frame was empty. “I thought it might be nice to have the pictures side by side. You know, us and your old team.”

She quieted as he folded the frame shut and ran his fingers over the one large shuriken carved into the front. Then he looked up at her, and he wasn’t imagining it; she’d gone noticeably pinker. Probably his silence was making her anxious. Gift exchanges could be awkward like that. 

“Thank you, Sakura,” he said.

She smiled at him and gave a small huff of a laugh. “It’s nothing,” she said, her pink hair swaying as she shook her head bashfully. “Kind of last minute, really.”

Kakashi doubted that. Something like this had to have been painstakingly crafted, the sharpest attention paid to the most minuscule of details. It had to have taken at least a week to make, and rush orders were impossible this time of year. He had a hunch she’d commissioned it some time ago.

“So… It’s okay if you didn’t get me anything.” She shrugged and ducked her head, then glanced up at him through her bangs, her eyes so wide and hopeful it made his heart ache.

“Actually,” he said, and Sakura visibly perked up. “I do have something for you.”

His pack and his snow-soiled cloak were still crumpled at the foot of his bed, right where he’d dropped them before haphazardly stripping for his shower the night before. Unzipping his bag, he cautiously started to dig around. Truth be told, he’d intended to keep this for himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to disappoint Sakura, even if she genuinely didn’t mind whether he’d gotten her something or not. It was only fair. Besides, she’d probably get more use out of it than him.

He dug the gift out of his bag carefully, turned back around, and presented Sakura with the gift: a small cactus, a soft sage green in color, with a single flower, bright and perky and pink as a peony, blooming from the top. It was nestled in a tiny terra cotta pot he’d picked up on his return journey.

She took it from him gingerly, holding it in front of her with her hands cupped around it as if it was something fragile and precious, like a baby animal, and not just a particularly small succulent. Green eyes gone nearly crossed from looking at it with such intense focus, she chirped, “It’s adorable!”

“I came across it when I was passing through Suna,” Kakashi explained. “Cacti aren’t hard to find out there. Flowers, on the other hand…” As he spoke, she shifted the plant into one hand and gently stroked the soft petals of the pink blossom with a free finger. “I was impressed by that one little flower, somehow able to bloom in the harshest conditions. It’s a resilient little thing. Lovely, but tough,” he said. What he didn’t say was, _It reminded me of you_.

Her lips, pink and slightly chapped from the cold, curled upward in a soft smile. Though he’d been hesitant to give the cactus up at first, as he watched her gently tuck the plant away in her bag, he knew now that he’d give her anything, down to the very clothes off his back, if it made her smile like that again.

She zipped up her bag, and he expected her to hike it up onto her shoulder, bid him a happy holiday, and leave. Instead, with one hand absentmindedly toying with the ends of her hair, she smiled up at him and asked, “Do you want to go for a walk with me?”

He shouldn’t. He knew he shouldn’t. The sight of her here, surrounded by the beige banality of his living room, was magnetic enough. Put her against a backdrop of a winter wonderland with a flush in her cheeks and flakes of snow dusting her hair and he didn’t trust himself to be able to keep away. But she was blinking at him expectantly, and her hand was extended his way, her fingers wiggling toward him, and as the case often was when it came to Haruno Sakura, he found himself unwilling and unable to say no.

He nodded, and her face split into a delighted grin. “Give me a minute,” he said. He retreated into his bedroom to search for something seasonally appropriate to wear. He threw on a sleeveless undershirt, pulling the attached mask up over his face, and found a bulky olive green cable-knit sweater tucked away in the recesses of his closet. A black fleece-lined coat, fingerless gloves, and a pair of standard-issue boots later, he was ready to go. He stuffed his hands deep into his pockets and the two of them headed out the front door together.

Glistening snow crunched under their feet as they strolled down the road. The street Kakashi lived on was somewhat infamous for being populated by shinobi; the buildings’ occupants were rarely home, and few of the ones who _were_ home were festive enough to decorate. But there were some lights strung up here and there, and Kakashi watched the blues and greens reflected back in Sakura’s eyes shift as she talked and laughed with him.

As usual, she did most of the talking. His seemingly noncommittal ‘hmm’s and ‘oh’s didn’t discourage her in the least. She’d known him long and well enough by now to know he really was listening whether he acted like it or not, though he doubted if she truly realized the full extent of the rapt attention he paid her. Even now, he kept a perfectly guarded visage, carefully evading her gaze to avoid being caught stealing glances.

It was certainly a white Christmas. Pale sunlight filtered in through the heavy cover of clouds overhead, casting a soft, dreamy white glow over the landscape, and the thick cushion of snow that blanketed the ground seemed to glitter and shimmer under the light. Soft, small snowflakes drifted lazily down around them now, but it must have snowed furiously all through the night; snowmen that had stood proudly unencumbered the night before were now buried up to their round waists in the drifts.

They chatted as they continued along, Sakura filling Kakashi in on all that had happened in his absence, and Kakashi chiming in when appropriate. Apparently Hinata and Naruto were expecting their second child – a daughter this time. And Sai had finally filed the paperwork to officially adopt Yamanaka as his family name. When she got tired of doing all the talking, Sakura wanted to know about Kakashi’s mission. Most of the details were confidential, not to mention dreadfully boring, so he glossed over it, choosing instead to tell her about the people and places he’d seen along the way. That seemed to be enough for her; she listened attentively to every word, like he was regaling her with an epic tale of heroism and not merely telling her about a Suna genin, fresh from the Academy, who had recognized him and mistakenly referred to him as Konoha’s formidable “Copy Guy”.

That got her laughing, and with her nose and eyes all scrunched up with mirth, she didn’t see the icy patch on the sidewalk just in front of her. She stepped onto it, and it was too late for Kakashi to warn her. She slipped, but managed to avoid falling in a graceless heap to the ground by catching herself on Kakashi’s arm, her fingers clutching onto his sleeve at the crook of his elbow. He paused to let her use his arm as an anchor to rebalance herself and when they continued on their way, she surprised him by keeping her hand loosely curled around his arm.

She kept on talking, gesticulating vaguely with her other hand, completely oblivious to the fact that Kakashi was in total awe of her. Eyes cast downward, fixated on her slender hand with fingernails painted a pastel shade of green, he felt like his center of gravity had shifted to that spot where she had latched on. She wasn’t doing a thing in the world, except sending a shock of warmth and tingles from his arm through to the rest of his body. She needn’t have gone through the trouble of finding him a gift. This – her hand on his arm, her broad smiles in his direction, her tinkling laughter, her very presence – was all he needed.

The cold picked up a sharper bite and the icy wind started to rattle the trees in an unsettling way, startling him back into reality. Snowflakes that had been leisurely floating to the blanketed ground only moments ago were now swirling fast through the air, getting caught, Kakashi noticed, in Sakura’s hair as she tried to keep the pink locks from flying in her face. The two of them shared a glance; no words were needed. They turned around and headed back.

By the time they made it back to his place, Kakashi’s nose had gone numb and Sakura was rubbing her hands together to warm up.

“Coffee?” Kakashi asked, already making his way toward the kitchen.

Sakura leaned back against the front door, breathing warmth onto her frozen hands, and sighed, “Please.”

Kakashi put a pot on, and it gurgled to life, filling the small apartment with the rejuvenating scent of fresh coffee. Though he carefully avoided watching her, he couldn’t help but see Sakura out of the corner of his eye, toeing her boots off and slipping out of her puffy winter coat. She had the right idea; he shucked off his own boots, his coat, and his gloves, and left them all heaped haphazardly on the kitchen tile.

The coffee pot spluttered to a stop, and Kakashi withdrew two green mugs from the overhead cupboard. He poured two cups of hot, black coffee, not bothering to ask if Sakura wanted any milk or sugar with hers. With the way she eagerly took the mug from him and held it up to her lips, she was interested more in the welcome warmth and cheer it offered rather than the taste.

He couldn’t help his smile at the blissful expression on her face; he was glad he’d left his mask on, lest she ask him what he was so happy about and he’d be forced to lie, or worse, tell the truth that he was never happier than when he was with her.

“Good?” he asked as he shuffled into the living room and sat back on the sofa, putting his sock feet up to rest on the coffee table.

“Mhm!” Sakura hummed pleasantly.

She followed him and set her cup down on the table, then flopped gracelessly onto the sofa beside him, jostling him and sending a sharp, searing jolt of pain through his side so bad it hit him with a wave of nausea. He groaned, angling himself away from her and curling in on himself, holding his free arm around his torso.

“Kakashi?” Sakura said, her voice high with worry. “What happened? Are you ok?”

He took a few steadying breaths in through his nose before he straightened himself out and replied, “I may have cracked a rib or two out in Suna. Or three.”

He gave her a sidelong glance and watched an expression of complete and utter concern for a teammate, for a close friend wash over her face. Then she _tsk_ ’d at him, and her expression morphed into one of professional disapproval as she shook her head slightly from side to side. 

“Well, why didn’t you say something earlier?” she asked.

Her hands lit up, healing chakra casting a pale green glow on her face and upon the room that was starting to darken from the storm clouds outside. As she scooted in closer, careful not to jostle him, Kakashi lifted his arm to make room for her and she tucked herself into his side, letting her hands hover just above his ribcage.

She healed him for a few moments like that, then gave a frustrated grunt and pulled her hands away. “I can’t get a good angle from here,” she said. So, shamelessly, probably without the slightest thought of what it might do to him, she swung one leg over him and perched herself upon his lap. She took his mug from him and set it on the coffee table, then her right hand flared green again, and she gave a small, satisfied smile as she started once again to heal him on his left side. “Much better,” she said. Her other hand came up to his right side and she told him, “You seem fine over here, but I’m going to check for injuries. Just in case.”

Wind-tousled hair in her face and sharp eyes focused, she was all business. But Kakashi’s heart rate had gone up, his skin felt like it was burning to a crisp, and he couldn’t stop watching the way she worried her lower lip between her teeth. He kept his hands to himself, but he was sure she must have noticed his slackened jaw and his trembling fists, fingers clenched so hard his nails were leaving indentations in the palm of his hand.

If she noticed, she made nothing of it. She worked in silence, mending his battered bones in a gentle, painless way. She was the only medic he knew who could do that - heal anything from a bruise to a broken bone without any pain - or at least the only one he knew who cared to try.

When she was done, he twisted his torso from side to side experimentally. He was still sore; no doubt he had a few ugly bruises hidden beneath his sweater. But the sharp pain in his ribs was gone, and he let out a deep sigh as he relaxed back into the soft, welcoming cushions of the sofa. His clenched hands relaxed and, without thinking, he rested them on the tops of her legs, still braced on either side of him.

“Better?” she asked, though the confident lilt to her voice let him know she already knew the answer.

He nodded, and almost regretted it when he felt her hands pull away from him, the pleasant warmth of her healing touch already beginning to fade. Something about the way she healed always left him in a deep state of relaxation, and he felt his eyes slip closed of their own accord. He really could fall asleep like this, with the heat of her still draped across his lap.

But it wasn’t meant to be. She shifted, and he fought the urge to grip her thighs and tug her closer. She said, “Well, I should probably get going.”

He hoped his disappointed frown couldn’t be seen through the thin fabric of his mask. He opened his eyes and looked at her. She was smiling in a way he sometimes swore was special, just for him. Then, a strong wind rattled the window, and they both turned to see heavy, hard flakes of snow slap against the shaking window pane.

“You could stay.”

In spite of the building storm outside, a stillness seemed to settle over the the room. They turned away from the window and toward each other, eyes meeting. Sakura’s brow was furrowed and she wasn’t smiling anymore. For better or for worse, Kakashi had crossed a threshold by inviting her to stay. The reality was, teachers just didn’t invite their students to stay the night if that’s all there was to the relationship.

Sakura still wasn’t saying anything, and Kakashi wished he could reach out and take back his words. When he opened his mouth, he meant to say nevermind, it was a silly idea. But he felt another mistake coming on, faster than he could stop it, and instead he said, “Please stay.” His hand, his traitorous hand, reached out, beyond any reasonable explanation, and rested against her reddened cheek, thumb brushing lightly over her soft skin. “I’d worry about you.”

He should have felt stupid for saying it. He’d seen her take down men three times her size, watched her go hand to hand, unarmed, against enemy kunoichi wielding massive blades, and witnessed her reduce caves and boulders to dust with little more than a flick of her finger. But the weather outside was frightful, and she couldn’t fight off the cold with brute strength, and he’d only blame himself if she got sick or couldn’t find her way home in the flurry.

He couldn’t bring himself to say anything else, or even to move. All he could do was stare at her as her face shifted, her lips quirking upward in a bewildered smile and parting slightly as she huffed out a laugh so quiet she might have only breathed. Then he could no longer think about how stupid he felt, or anything else for that matter, because his mind went blank when she dipped her head forward and kissed him.

The room somehow fell even quieter. The only sound was the wind or the blood rushing in his ears; he couldn’t tell which it was. He didn’t dare speak or move or even open his eyes. Maybe this was all in his head, and if he opened his eyes, he’d be alone. But no. There was no imagining the way she tilted her mouth over his and caught his lips between her own, or the way one of her hands clutched at the front of his sweater. When her other hand crept up and slipped through his hair, he could no longer hold himself back. His arms wrapped around her waist and he tugged her forward, eliciting from her mouth a soft sound of surprise. He chased the sound, nipping softly at her lower lip.

They kissed until they ran out of breath, and when they separated, he kept his arms curled around her and rested his cheek against her collarbone where he could hear her heart still racing. He must have been good this year; though he’d often dreamed of having her in his arms like this, he’d never dared to hope that it would ever actually happen, and on Christmas Day no less. But even his wildest imaginings could not compare to the reality of her, warm and soft and still smelling of fresh, clean snow, petting her hands lightly over his hair as she murmured, “I’ll stay.”

Later that evening, as he sat on the sofa with her curled up against him, tucked into his side and snoring softly against his shoulder, he wondered if it was too early to ask her what she was doing New Year’s Eve.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't mean for this to end up as angsty as it did? It was supposed to be all fun and games and then Kakashi had to get all up in his FEELINGS. Anyway, I really just wanted an excuse to stick some Christmas/holiday song references in a fic, and festive fluff is always fun. How many references did you catch?


End file.
